From: HMAVERIK@aol.com

In 332 BCE, a conqueror of a new kind led his victorious armies southward through Palestine, along the coastal plain fronting the Mediterranean Sea. He was the youthful Alexander of Macedonia, a Greek in culture and outlook, and a military genius that brought doom to the aging Persian Empire. He had defeated the Persian king Darius in a great battle at Issus, besieged and taken Tyre and then Gaza, and was on his way to establish control over Egypt. His forces also fanned out and devastated Samaria, then went on to Jericho nearly 15 miles northeast of Jerusalem.

An oft-told tale asserts that Alexander the Great journeyed to Jerusalem from his encampment at Gaza and there was received in ceremonial splendor at the Temple itself. Josephus, the noted Jewish historian, writing about four hundred years later, pictured the high priest, Jaddua, greeting the meteoric young world conqueror, who was friendly, and favorably impressed by what he found at the Temple. The Talmud, that rich repository of Jewish commentary and legend, tells also of such a visit, but names the high priest as Simon the just. Trustworthy evidence for such a visit, however, appears to be lacking.

Far more important, though, are several facts that are safely beyond doubt. Alexander's defeat of the Persians and his conquest of Palestine ended one great era and began another for the land of the Temple. Ended was rule by conquerors based in the East: the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and even the Egyptians (commonly considered part of the East, though their land lies well west of Jerusalem). The new era brought rule by conquerors based in the West, the Greeks, or Hellenes as they called themselves. They initiated the Hellenistic period in the Middle East. Greek culture, Greek commercial practices, and Greek political ideas penetrated ever more deeply, even though the rulers themselves did not reside in palaces located in Greece itself. Then finally they were to be followed by a force from still further west the Romans.

Alexander's brief career of conquest continued less than a dozen years after his supposed reception at the Temple. He had become master of almost all the known and wanted world when he died aged only thirty-two. More important, his conquests had not been mere marauding or plundering expeditions; they had been followed by the Hellenization of the regions he won. Cities arose on the Hellenistic pattern, a blend between the Hellenic of Greece itself and the Oriental with which it was mixed. Commerce, trade, and transport expanded. The Persian control of the eastern Mediterranean was broken.

In the cities and towns of Palestine, the simpler, sterner Hebraic ways now were influenced and infiltrated by Hellenistic games, spectacles, cabarets, distractions, discussions, and sophistication. Hebraic and Hellenistic attitudes clashed at many levels and over a long period. The Hellenistic way of life was alluring, full of pastimes and luxuries for the wealthy. Slaves did most of the tough, dirty work. Manual or even craft labor was held in contempt. Worship was idolatrous, indifferent, cut off largely from questions of daily conduct. The rulers and aristocrats of the Hellenistic world placed first pursuit of pleasure rather than righteousness or piety. All this was a long time at work, and its interactions were complex, rather than simple. One fact stands out: new ways of life and attitudes of mind impinged on Palestine following the new era inaugurated by Alexander the Great.

Great numbers of Jews became residents of the new city of Alexandria of the Nile, a fully Hellenistic community, not an "Egyptian" one. Increasing numbers of Jews lived, traveled, and traded outside Palestine. Greek became the international language of all this empire. It was the language of the wealthy and sophisticated also in Jerusalem and all Judah. The common people had long spoken not Hebrew, but Aramaic, a related tongue.

Alexander died in 323 BCE No single competent heir took over his vast empire. Instead, his principal generals and administrators now struggled for shares. Ptolemy retained Egypt and managed also to get Palestine, though it was wanted and claimed by Seleucus, who kept control of a huge segment of the empire centered around Syria.

Thus began two great Hellenistic dynasties that lasted long in history: the Ptolemies of Egypt, and the Seleucids of Syria. It is important to recall that in origin the Ptolemies were not "Egyptians" any more than the Seleucids were "Syrians.

Jewish Palestine remained part of' the empire of the Ptolemies between 300 and 200 BCE, though that interval was bloodied by four separate cycles of wars involving the rival dynasties. During the peaceful intervals, the people of Jerusalem and Judah fared not too badly, for the Ptolemies allowed freedom of worship and traditional usage's, so long as taxes were paid and the rival Seleucids were not supported.

The back-and-forth struggles between the rivals, however, were felt more than once in the sacred city and on its Temple mount. Thus, in 217 BCE, Ptolemy IV, having defeated the Seleucid monarch Antiochus III near Gaza, marched triumphantly through Palestine and visited Jerusalem and the Temple site along the way. His Egyptian cavalry numbered by the thousands, and his hundred war elephants apparently did not make the visit to Mount Mariah, however.

Antiochus III attacked Palestine again in 201 BCE, but was driven back by Ptolemaic forces whose commander, Scopas, then marched into Jerusalem and occupied it - probably to crush pro-Seleucid support that had appeared there. A short time later, those of Antiochus, who now marched triumphantly through Palestine and to Jerusalem, defeated Scopas' warriors. There the Seleucid supporters helped Antiochus' Syrian-Greek soldiers to find and dispose of the Egyptian garrison that had held the city.

Antiochus, now overlord of the region, showed some gratitude. He supplied approved materials for sacrifices and rituals in the Temple: cattle, wheat, spices, salt, oil, and wine. Exemptions from the oppressive head tax and salt tax were granted to the Temple priests and scribes. Other citizens were given a three-year pause in such taxes. The Seleucid monarch also pledged to respect the Temple and to protect the freedom of his Jewish subjects to worship according to their traditions and laws.

During more than thirty years following, relative peace prevailed in Jerusalem and Judah under Seleucid rule. The new monarchs, however, pushed harder than the Ptolemies had, to reshape the life of the people along Hellenistic lines. The reason for this push was the threat of far away Rome, the conquering city- state-empire in the boot-shaped Italian peninsula. The cycles of empire were still under way: the Greeks had broken Persian control over the eastern Mediterranean lands; now the Romans were breaking the Hellenistic powers, one by one. In 197 BCE, they had dealt a crushing blow to Macedonia, motherland of Alexander the Great. By 192, the Roman leaders felt able to take on the Seleucid monarch, Antiochus III himself. The next year they drove his forces from Greece, and the year after that from Asia Minor. Antiochus was forced to destroy his war fleet, to pledge payment of a huge tribute to Rome, and to see his own son taken to Rome as hostage or pledge for payment.

Antiochus, desperate for funds, sought to take them from temple treasuries in his realm. He was removing treasure from a pagan temple in Elimaid, Mesopotamia, when the people there, furious at the sacrilege, rose up and killed him and his men.

Seleucus IV was the next to occupy the endangered Seleucid throne. During his reign, the Jewish high priest in Jerusalem was Onias III, member of an aristocratic family, the Oniads, from which had come a number of high priests during the period of Ptolemaic rule. This Onias supported the traditional Jewish rites and observances. Ranged against him, in growing opposition, were priests from other families supporting the Hellenistic policies of the Seleucid rulers.Simon, one of these Hellenizers among the priests, determined to unseat Onias, told Apollonius, the Seleucid governor, that the Temple treasury stood "full of infinite sums of money" not needed for the services. What followed is part of a miraculous folktale, related in II Maccabees, in the Apocrypha, the collection of writings that were considered but excluded when the present Bible was finally compiled.

Seleucus IV, avid for money as his father had been, sent Heliodorus, his treasurer, to bring wealth from the Temple on Mount Moriah. Onias stood helplessly aghast when he found what Heliodorus intended. However, divine protectors appeared and thwarted the theft. One was in the form of "a horse with a terrible rider," the other two were handsome young men. They whipped Heliodorus till his body showed "many sore stripes." He would have been killed, had not Onias hastily offered sacrifice for his health, and thus saved him.Next on the Seleucid throne was Antiochus IV who had spent some fifteen years living as royal hostage in Rome. He is described as combining the worst characteristics of both the Greeks and the Romans: on the one hand a craving for luxury and splendor, on the other a craving for violence and cruelty. He added to his name Epiphanes, meaning that he was a divine being. His detractors, however, secretly lampooned him with a Greek pun: Epiphanes, meaning crazy or wild.Mad he may have seemed sometimes, but with a method. Rome threatened to bite off and swallow his remaining empire. He was determined to unify his subjects to resist this growing danger. Religion was to become the strong cement to hold them together: a single, identical religion for all, with himself Epiphanes, worshiped along with the assorted Olympian gods, headed by Zeus. Such enforced paganism violated the pledge Antiochus III had given the leaders in Jerusalem: to respect their religious rights and rites.

Another priest of the Temple staff encouraged Epiphanes to forget that pledge. He was, in fact, a brother of Onias, and had been named Joshua, but chose rather the Hellenistic name of Jason. To King Epiphanes, Jason now offered a bribe: "Make me high priest and I'll see that you get much more tribute than you now do from Jerusalem."

Thus Onias was ousted and banished in 174 BCE As new high priest, Jason tried to Hellenize Jerusalem and all Judea. A typical Hellenistic gymnasium was built near the Temple. It combined Greek games and dances with pagan worship. Young Jewish men, unclothed in defiance of their traditions, appeared there even young priests from the Temple sometimes took part in these fashionable rites. Jason sent a delegation of young men with money to pay for sacrifice to the Phoenician god Heracles, in honor of an appearance that King Epiphanes was to make at a Greek games festival at Tyre. The young Jews could not bring themselves, finally, to be parties to such idolatry, and instead contributed the money to the royal treasury, to use for building ships.Epiphanes himself visiting Jerusalem was received with torchlight processions and flattering attentions. Jason was rewarded with authority to issue decrees changing the basic law - the constitution, so to speak - of the land of Yehud, now known as Judea.Another Temple priest, also with a Hellenistic name - Menelaus belonged to the family of Tobiads, long rivals of the Oniads. Menelaus, being sent to take "pay off" money from Jason to Epiphanes, delivered it -and also the suggestion that if he were made high priest he would make these payments larger still.

Jason fled for his life across the Jordan, and the high priest in the Temple was now Menelaus, who (according to 11 Maccabees) possessed "The fury of a cruel tyrant and the rage of a savage beast ' " but "nothing worthy of the high priesthood." Menelaus soon was in trouble. Unable to make the promised payments to the monarch, he was called to the capital, Antioch. He left the Temple in charge of his brother Lysimachus, and took along some of the Temple's sacred vessels of precious metal, with which to bribe the King's men.

In Antioch, the former Jewish high priest, Onias 111, appeared, and raised charges of Temple looting against Menelaus, who responded by having Onias, murdered. The murderer was later convicted and executed, but Menelaus managed to retain his position as high priest. Further Temple plundering by Menelaus' brother Lysimachus roused a storm of popular protest. People marched on the Temple, routed the guarding soldiers with paving stones and crude clubs, and then, finding Lysimachus in the Sanctuary's treasury, killed him there.

A delegation of Jewish representatives was sent to tell the king of the crimes committed against the Temple and to beg him to rid them of Menelaus. Epiphanes, however, rejected their plea and had three of them executed.

This Seleucid monarch had concerns greater than little Palestine. Believing Rome to be preoccupied elsewhere, he invaded Egypt in 170 B.C,E. Rumors reached Jerusalem that he had been killed, and the former high priest Jason, returning to Jerusalem with a small army, was apparently welcomed as a far lesser evil than Menelaus. The latter took refuge with the Seleucid soldiers who garrisoned the city, while the people, headed by Jason, celebrated the overthrow of Syrian tyranny. This was premature, for Epiphanes hurried back, still much alive and bent on vengeance. Aided by Menelaus, his men seized the most precious remaining treasures of the Temple and carried them off to Antioch. Menelaus, depending more than ever on the swords of the Syrian garrison, stayed on as high priest.

Again in 168 BCE, Epiphanes sought to invade Egypt, but within a few miles of Alexandria was halted by a Roman commander and ordered, in a most insulting way, to leave Egypt at once. He withdrew, seething with rage, and vented it on his stubborn subjects in Jerusalem. His army of Syrian and Greek mercenaries ran amok there on a Jewish Sabbath, plundering, kidnapping, murdering. Thousands died other thousands fled.Now the city was transformed by orders of Epiphanes. A lofty Hellenistic fortress, the "Acra," was erected, dominating the Temple itself, and garrisoned by Syrian soldiery. In Jerusalem's western hills was built a Hellenistic section that came to be known as "Antiochia in Jerusalem." In it were lodged the Seleucid soldiers, officials, their families, and servitors.

Crushing decrees were issued against observance of the Jewish Sabbath, of Jewish dietary laws, of the rite of circumcision, and of Jewish traditional worship of the one God. Only the pagan gods of Olympus were to be worshiped henceforth, and to enforce this, an altar to Zeus was erected on top of the famous Temple altar to Yahweh. The date of that infamy became a Jewish tradition: 168 BCE, on the 15th day of the third lunar month, Kislev (equivalent to January). Ten days later, on the 25th, the first burnt offering to pagan gods was made at the Temple. Within its walls and courts now stood statues of those alien deities, Zeus, Hera, Dionysius (Bacchus), Aphrodite (Venus), Ares (Mars), and others. Pagan priests walked its corridors.Compulsory paganizing went even further. Pious Jews were forced to eat pork, or to wear vine and grape leaves in honor of Bacchus. Some found reason to save their lives or families by swearing allegiance to pagan creeds. Others refused and died as martyrs. Still others declined either to comply or die. They found ways to resist, to fight back.

One such was a Jewish priest named Mattathias, of the family of the Hashmoneans, His great gesture took place not in Jerusalem where he had lived, but at a small village, Modiin, where he had sought refuge. An agent of the new tyrannical regime had come to Modiin to see that pagan sacrifices were conducted as decreed. Mattathias refused to take part. When another Jew stepped up ready to do so, Mattathias killed him, and the royal agent also. Then, with his five stalwart sons, Mattathias fled to the mountains. Other

resisting Jews, called the Hasidim or "pious ones" joined them there. Soon, out of those forbidding hills came commando bands destroying the pagan altars, summoning farmers and workers to resist with them. In their mountain hideaways they practiced their traditional worship and planned new forays against the infidels.Mattathias died but his sons carried on, led by Judas, who struck so hard in his raids that he came to be called the Maccabees, or Hammerer.

In 167 BCE, the Seleucid general, Apollonius, who had commanded during the massacre in Jerusalem, led troops to find and destroy these impudent rebels. Judas' raiders, however, struck first; the soldiers were wiped out, Apollonius died, and his sword was taken and used from then on by Judas. During the next years, this Hammerer and his armed "Hasidim" won one victory after another against the Seleucid forces. Finally, they achieved their first great goal, they liberated Jerusalem, regained and cleaned the Temple, after its three years of Pagan desecration, and rekindled the traditional lights of the Menorah or seven-branched candelabra.That day the 25th of Kislev, 164 BCE, has been celebrated ever since by observing Jews as the festival of lights or Hanukkah. Tradition tells that though there was ritually pure oil for the lamps to burn only a single day, they nevertheless shone on during eight days off great thanksgiving. Thus th Hanukkah lights always hold eight candles, as well as one more from which the others are lit, in increasing numbers, night after night.

The victory in Jerusalem was not yet complete, however. Though the Sanctuary was secure, the Acra fortress overlooking it remained in the hands of Seleucid troops. Jerusalem was cut into hostile sectors - as it was to be again more than once in the following centuries, down to our own twentieth century. To counterbalance the Acra, the Maccabees forces built counter-fortifications on the Temple mount, and also south of it.Under command of Judas and of Simon Maccabees, the patriots went on to win a series of scattered and improbable victories. Finally, a huge Seleucid army marched into Palestine, headed by a new king, Antiochus V. (Epiphanes having died while warring in Persia far to the east.) These forces did retake the Temple, but, guided by past lessons, did not interfere with its traditional sacrifices and services.A complex series of events led finally, by 141 BCE, to the gaining of power over all Jerusalem and environs by the forces under the surviving Maccabees. The hated Acra was pulled down, leaving no fortress to dominate the Temple. A new building arose, however - the residence of the Maccabees leader, who now became both high priests for the Temple and political head, prince, or "Etnarch," of the Jewish commonwealth. Simon filled this dual role, last of the five sons of Mattathias. The other brothers had all died in battles.

For the first time in many bloody centuries, the land of the Temple and of the children of Israel was free of a foreign yoke. Yet many of its citizens, traditional in their attitudes, looked with doubt or disfavor on the new situation in which one leader was both high priest and also head of the state and its armed forces.